Web sites that suck (in France)

France as a country has long been very good at building very bad Web sites, profiting from its two decades of lag behind the rest of the developed world to produce sites that look like they were designed by seventh-graders on their first day of computer class in junior high. A new record for terrible French Web sites was set just a few days ago, when erstwhile failed presidential candidate Ségolène Royal had a site created for an association, Désirs d'Avenir (“future desires”—sounds like the name of a DVD that you'd find in the backroom of the video store), that supports her political activities.

By a truly amazing coincidence, this new Frankensite was created by her current boyfriend, André Hadjez. Her honey spent two months giving life to the monster, and charged her association more than $57,000 for his handiwork. Somehow, out of that bare-bones 57-kilobuck budget, he managed to find the funds necessary to use a background image taken from the set of desktop wallpapers that ships with Microsoft Vista, a stroke of artistic genius that was instantly identified by observers. Hours after the original site debuted, it was replaced by another site that sported an eye-straining day-glo magenta background. The last time I tried to look at the site from school, it was inaccessible. A few hours ago, when I tried to see it from home, I was unable to view it because—like every French Web site designed since the extinction of the dinosaurs—it consists entirely of a Flash animation, and I don't run Flash animations on untrusted sites for security reasons.

Ms. Royal supposedly said that “This idea is Andre's. He's a very talented man in multimedia and very much in love.” I'm not sure how being in love helps one to build Web sites. In fact, looking at this site, I'm more inclined to conclude that being in love somehow puts talent (if any) into suspended animation.

Anyway, this mess attracted strident hoots of ridicule from every corner of Francophone society (the rest of the world was mostly indifferent). The site is terrible even by the extremely undemanding standards of French web-weaving. I could easily do ten times better for ten times less, and so could the vast majority of webmasters working in this century. If this is an example of what Ségolène's beau produces for $57,000, I shudder to think what he might charge for a site that were actually presentable and modern.

If you search around on the Web, you can find copies of the two initial home pages of the site pretty easily (which has changed several times as the association struggles to carry out damage control). It's impossible to say anything complimentary about them.

There are also many lampoons of the site popping up, although I don't know if they'll be around for long once the 15 minutes of fame that this site has bought for its owner have expired. Some people have even speculated that the site might have been deliberately designed bad, in order to generate buzz, because it's hard to believe that anyone could create anything so inept without wanting to.

This does help demonstrate that, if you find burning $100 bills in a hibachi to be too solid a financial investment, you can always waste money even more efficiently by hiring a French firm to build your Web site.

Another retirement-by-suicide and other forms of hysteria

Today another employee of France Télécom tried to kill herself, right in the office, by taking an overdose of barbiturates. Apparently she had been moved around the country and had been given very few real things to do, and she had just been told that she was being retroactively demoted and moved to yet another location.

Obviously FT has some very serious management problems, but it's not the only French company to be poorly managed, not by a long shot.

Speaking of hysterical overreactions, it has been revealed recently that the government (specifically the Ministry of Justice) has an extreme plan for suspending civil liberties in order to protect against the apparently hellish prospect of a swine flu epidemic. The list of measures under consideration is long and frightening—far from the type of thing you'd expect to see in a nominal democracy. The mere existence of such a plan is worrisome, and it's even more worrisome that anything so extreme would be considered for a public-health situation that is very tame by comparison. Swine flu infections tend to produce milder symptoms than ordinary strains of the flu, and only 13 people have died of the swine flu in France (which is nothing when you consider the number of people who catch the flu). How the government got from something so non-threatening to a plan that effectively imposes martial law is a bit of a mystery. As it is, schools are being closed every day due to hysteria over the swine flu, even though all the kids who catch the disease seem to be recovering just fine after three or four days.

A French doctor in a televised discussion has suggested that vaccinating everyone might not be such a good idea, either, because the vaccine has been prepared so hastily and so carelessly that it presents more of a danger to public health than the flu itself. He speculated that the vaccine, if universally administered, might kill perhaps three times as many people as the flu would kill, making it a bit foolish to insist on immunizing everyone. He suggests that the pursuit of money, not public health, is behind the push for vaccination. Given the sorry history of France with respect to public health crises in the past (such as the affair of HIV contaminated blood transfusions some years back), this would not surprise me. Indeed, it's odd that such hysteria surrounds a disease that has killed only 13 people, whereas a heat wave that killed 15,000 in 2003 elicited virtually no action or suggestions at all on the part of the government, apart from suggestions to drink more water!

Anyway … the weather is quite cool at the moment, although it is very humid. The leak in my kitchen continues to worsen, and I still have no money to fix it (and I still wonder why I'm expected to fix it at my expense). I have to turn the water off a lot to slow it down, and I'm not even sure if that is working.

Après nous, le déluge

Well, the leak in the kitchen is dripping four times faster than it was last week, when it mysteriously appeared as the water-meter technician did something to the meter.

I talked to the insurance company (Matmut). They said it's not their problem; they only reimburse for water damage, not the cost of repairing leaks. The building management company also says it's not their problem. And ista-CIS, the company that sent the technician who apparently caused the leak, also denies responsibility (through the technician). Apparently I'm expected to pay for repairs, but I have only €36 to my name right now.

I empty the 6-liter bucket I put beneath the leak every three or four hours. It isn't going to hold a full day of leaks once I go to work tomorrow, so there's a good possibility that there will be water all over the kitchen floor (at least) when I get home. At the insurance company's suggestion, I'm sending them a letter (shown here, redacted, in French) describing the leak and its circumstances in the hope that they might be able to compel ista-CIS to fix it. But I'm not optimistic.

Not happy with your job? Jump out a window.

Suicides are again in the news in France, after a 32-year-old employee of France Télécom who couldn't stand her job threw herself out of a window. A bit unusual, you might say. France Télécom says she had issues.

The problem is that 21 other people at France Télécom have committed suicide for the same reasons. And there have been many suicides at Renault, as well.

In the United States, if you don't like your job, you quit and find another job. But that's not how it works in France. In France, your elders decide for you what career you will pursue while you're still a teenager. You are then shunted into a specific educational program that aims at the selected career path, which simultaneously closes other paths. Once your schooling is complete, you are expected to find a job in the selected career domain and retain it for the rest of your life.

Changing careers is seriously frowned upon in France. If you change careers in the U.S., it might be considered evidence of versatility; in France, a career change on your resume will inevitably elicit the question “You changed careers … what went wrong?” Someone who changes careers is considered a failure, or a rebel. How could anyone not want to do the same job for his entire life?

Even changing jobs is risky. Not only does it make you seem unreliable in the eyes of French employers, but it might be impossible to find a new job after leaving the old one. It takes a very long time to get a job in France. If you are over 40, or if you are changing or have changed careers, or you look or sound like an immigrant, or you don't have a network of well-placed friends to offer you a sinecure, you may not be able to find any work at all. The unemployment rate in France has been high since time immemorial. It's hard to fire people, and it's also hard to get hired (because it's so hard to fire, amongst other reasons).

This all being as it is, it's not surprising that some French people consider killing themselves to be the only escape from job dissatisfaction. You can imagine how dire the situation must be if people are committing suicide. Many French companies are still managed in an authoritarian, eighteenth-century style that is not conducive to worker happiness at best, and leads employees to jump out windows at worst.

Even knowing these things, I'm still astonished that people would kill themselves rather than change jobs. I know most French people are hysterically paranoid about losing their jobs, but still. I've never heard of this happening in the United States. It's pretty weird. It's hard to understand how France can hope to compete in global markets with serious problems like this haunting it.

I'm reminded of a classic example of French cluelessness: the color scheme of Orange, France Télécom's ever-confusing doppelganger. I guess nobody there ever did enough research to discover that orange and black (the company's colors) are associated with Halloween in the United States.

Rice cooking, leaky pipes

I don't know how to cook, but I do have a rice cooker that I received as a gift. After my parents sent me some money for groceries, I went to the store and bought some butter, four eggs, and some frozen chopped spinach, plus a jar of tikka sauce. I already had a bag of rice. I managed to concoct a rice meal that doesn't taste too bad. There's enough to last for several days. It's hardly French cuisine but it's one of the few things I know how to make, and in theory, at least, it should be cheap—my calculations reveal that it works out to about 2 euro per serving, which is a slight savings over ready-made meals (although it's more expensive than a small loaf of pound cake, which is one of my other low-cost meals).

I found a plastic pail that's bigger than the cup I was using to catch the leak in the kitchen that I've had since the meter man worked on the meter. I had to cut one corner away to make it fit beneath the leaky fitting. It holds six liters instead of the single liter the cup held. However, the leak is now dripping once per second rather than once every two seconds, so it still fills up every few hours. No progress yet on getting the meter company to fix it (or pay to have it fixed). I don't have the several hundred euro a plumber would charge to fix it, and my insurance has a deductible that probably would prevent it from covering the repairs. That's what I get for letting the meter man in (at the syndicat's insistence).

The weather is turning hot again, after about a week of very nice, cool weather. Sometimes the weather is simply seasonal, but most of the time it's warmer than seasonal, as usual (if that makes sense). We are getting far less rain than we need.

Everyone for himself

There's a water meter inside my apartment. In France, sometimes they don't put meters outside, where you'd expect to find them; instead they are inside a residence, which means that meter readers must periodically enter the residence to read the meter, which means that somebody has to be there to let them in. It's a very bizarre arrangement. My electric meter is outside, so that can be read without entering the apartment, although the electric company usually “estimates” my consumption (by taking the real consumption and tripling or quadrupling it) instead of actually coming out to read the meter.

Anyway, the water meter is inside the apartment. Years ago, the company that runs these meters, which is apparently called ista-CIS (I'm not sure, as it has only been identified to me as “CIS”) installed electronic meters that magically transmit their readings to some central point, so that nobody has to come into the apartment. Which was great as far as I was concerned.

This electronic meter apparently runs on a battery, which has to be replaced every few years. In February, my syndicat (that's how the French refer to a building management company) sent me a letter telling me to be ready on a certain day for a technician to come out and (apparently) replace this battery. So I took a day off work, losing a day's wages … and he never showed up. There was a note on the wall in the lobby when I got home that said he was “sick” and wouldn't be able to come (I guess this company has only one employee for this task, or something).

A few weeks ago, the syndicat sent another letter that said I absolutely, positively had to let this technician into the apartment to do whatever has to be done to the meter. They said it was defective and had to be replaced, or maintained (the letter wasn't consistent on this point), otherwise I'd be charged a hefty fixed price for water (500 cubic feet per month). The date for his visit was September 2.

I wasn't working on that day (yesterday), so I was there waiting for him. He showed up early. I showed him into what passes for a kitchen in my apartment: a very crowded little alcove with a fridge, an unused washing machine—that's a separate story for some other day—and a sink with a cold-water faucet. He shifted the small washing machine out of the way, and went to work. It only took a few minutes. I didn't keep an eye on him so I'm not sure exactly what he did.

As he was finishing, he said “look, you have a leak.” I walked over and peered into the very crowded space behind the washing machine. Sure enough, at the fitting that connected the output of the meter to the water supply inside the apartment, there was water dripping from the fitting. Beneath it, there was a tiny puddle of water a few inches wide. The fitting dripped at about once every two seconds. I had never noticed any leak before, and it seemed odd to me that something dripping every two seconds would produce such a tiny puddle, but I made a note of it. The technician then put the washing machine back into place and left.

Several hours later, I walked into the kitchen, and the floor was covered with water, which came as a shock. It had been dry that morning. In fact, it was normally dry. I looked behind the washing machine and realized that the leak was dumping water all over the floor. The thing is … there had been no water before the technician came, and I now realized that with a fitting that is dripping every two seconds, there is absolutely no way that it could have been leaking before the technician came, or the kitchen would have been covered with water long ago. Since the kitchen had been bone dry before his visit, and was soaking wet only a few hours after his visit, the appearance of this leak precisely coincided with his visit. I had not previously noticed the leak before he pointed it out to me because there had previously been no leak.

To me it's just too hard to believe that by some magic coincidence this leak decided to spring up at the very moment that the technician was working on the meter … therefore the meter technician must have done something to make the fitting leak. There's just no way that it could have been dripping like that before he came without leaking water all over the kitchen floor (which is exactly what it did in only an hour or two after he left).

So I called the syndicat to tell them that the technician must have broken something, because I now had a water leak in the kitchen. They called ista-CIS, and the technician called me back the next morning (this morning). However, he said that his responsibility was the meter only, and there was absolutely no way that he could have caused a leak. Yes, he pointed the leak out to me, but it wasn't him. Maybe the kitchen was dry before he came and wet afterwards, but it wasn't him. Maybe it was on the fitting that connected the meter to the apartment, but that wasn't his responsibility.

That seemed very difficult to accept, given that I had had no water at all in the kitchen before his visit, and now the leak was flooding the floor. I had to put a plastic cup beneath the pipe (the only thing I had that would fit beneath it), and empty it every two hours to keep water from getting onto the floor. He should have realized this himself, because the floor was dry when he came to visit. But he denied any connection between the leak and whatever he did to the meter.

So I called the syndicat. They said it wasn't their problem, either. They said it was my problem, and it was up to me to pay for repairs. After all, what proof did I have that the ista-CIS technician had caused the leak? I guess a dry kitchen before his visit and a wet kitchen afterwards weren't stufficient proof—or, more likely, they simply assumed I was lying and had taken this opportunity to blame an existing leak on the technician.

It's hard to believe that the technician could deny a connection if the kitchen was dry when he arrived and wet two hours after he left. It's also hard to believe that I would leave something leaking in the kitchen for years, waiting for the once-in-a-decade maintenance visit from the ista-CIS technician just so I could blame it on him. But in France, everyone is assumed to be a liar until proven otherwise, and proving otherwise consists of having the best lawyer.

It's very tiring. Why does everyone in France try to escape all responsibility for everything? Why can't people be honest? Why would I lie about a leak in the kitchen, especially since a sudden leak would presumably be covered by insurance, anyway? How could a technician not see a connection between dry floor on arrival and wet floor after departure? Why not just come back out and fix it? Why is everyone in France so hellbent on shafting his neighbor? It's a weird cultural thing, but it's very fatiguing. Is it the Latin/macho influence? I don't know.

And to compound this all, I'm broke. I won't have anything until the 15th at the earliest. I'm down to my last fifty cents, literally (all I have is what's in my pocket, and in my pocket I have fifty cents). I spent half of my last twenty euro on milk and pound cake, and the other half on the laundromat (if you're wondering why I go to a laundromat when I have a washing machine at home—well, like I said, that's another French-culture story for another day). A plumber would charge hundreds of euro for a leak I didn't cause, and I don't have a credit card or even checks. A lawyer would want several hundred euro per hour.

I still have to try calling ista-CIS one more time, but, it being a French company, I pretty much know how that will go (“Mais non, Monsieur, ce n'est pas nous!”). I may stop by the insurance agent's office tomorrow to see what they can do, against my better judgement, even though that will probably only make things worse (I'm not sure how, but taking any positive action always makes things worse, and of course it's a French insurance company). In the meantime, I have to empty the plastic cup under the pipe every two hours, 24 hours a day.

France caves on drinking laws

Late last month, France put a new law into effect that requires a person to be at least 18 before he or she can buy or be served alcohol. The limit used to be 16 in certain cases.

It pretty much passed me by because I'm over 18 and I don't do drugs (not even ethanol). I'm sure it disappoints some people (those who are under 18 and do ethanol) and rejoices others (those who are over 18 and do ethanol, and don't like to practice what they preach). Of course, in France, practically everyone drinks, and they don't usually wait until age 18 to start. French people go directly from breastmilk to alcohol and coffee. Cow's milk is for cooking, not drinking. The logic is that milk is for babies. But if one follows that logic, for which species are alcohol and coffee intended?

The new law also specifies that businesses may ask for ID before selling or serving alcohol. I'm sure that will be more honored in the breach than in the observance. I've never seen anyone carded in France (granted, I don't often go to places that are dedicated to serving alcohol). Even McDonald's and Disneyland serve booze in France.

Today was the last day of the summer season of the Fête des Tuileries, as I mentioned before, so no more tasty Greek sandwiches for another few months (they return over the Christmas holidays). That place served booze, too, of course—in fact, it didn't serve any drinks except alcoholic drinks! I always went to a stand next door to buy a soft drink to go with the sandwich and fries. Unfortunately, it cost $14, which is about $13 more than I can afford to spend on meals right now. For the moment, meals consist of pound cake, or some pieces of bacon, with milk or (occasionally) caffeine-free Coke.

The heat comes and goes. The evenings are cool but the days are hot. Overall it's still unseasonably warm and dry. I keep hoping this streak of bad (for me) weather will break, but no sign of that yet.

Sandwiches, the Fête des Tuileries, and Paris Plage

Apparently Paris Plage has been a big success this year. The success of the event each year depends a lot on the weather. If it's not hot, people don't go there as much, and if it's way too hot (as it is right now), people don't go, either, but if it's in between (in the 90s Fahrenheit, as it has been in recent days), they seem to flock to the event.

It has been on my list, but I haven't had the energy to visit this year. Most days have been too hot. My threshold of tolerance for heat is low, after years spent suffering in the hellish desert conditions of the Great American Southwest. Eventually, everyone will be like me, as the planet continues to heat up; but right now people in formerly cool regions like Paris are like the proverbial frogs [no pun intended] in a saucepan filled with water on the stove, blissfully unaware that the water is gradually heating up. When it's hot, all I want to do is find air conditioning. I've sweat enough to fill Lake Mead in my lifetime, and I'm tired of it.

Anyway, what I'm missing slightly more is the Fête des Tuileries—the small fair that runs twice a year next to the Louvre—which I've only visited once or twice this summer. I don't ride the rides, but I do eat the junk food, and I especially like the simple Greek sandwiches sold by one regular attendee at the fair. Mmm, I like those sandwiches, complete with an equally simple box of french fries. But heat and poverty have kept me away (a sandwich, fries, and Coke cost €10).

Paris Plage closes tomorrow, so that the expressway it occupies can be back in service by Monday morning. The Fête des Tuileries closes on Sunday.

Heat wave o'the week and nearby movies

For some days now, blazing heat has been the rule again in Paris—yet another “heat wave,” or so it is considered officially, even though heat waves are now more common than “normal,” seasonal temperatures.

It got up to 102° F outside my window, which means it was about 110° F on the street. The “normal” yearly maximum temperature for Paris is 76° F, so it's about 30° above normal, again. There's also a pollution alert in effect, as there almost always is when extreme heat traps pollutants in the Parisian air—today was a 6, out of 10 (10 being the worst).

My ancient air conditioner struggled continuously throughout the day, but could not get the temperature inside the apartment below 81° F. Still, that was 25° or so cooler than outside, and every little bit helps.

I learned this evening that some American film is being shot almost literally outside my door (actually a street or two away). The talent includes Leonardo DiCaprio, whose name I recognize (I saw him in Titanic and The Aviator), plus some other actress named Ellen-something. However, there are location shoots every day in Paris—it's like Los Angeles in that respect—so it's nothing worth seeing … particularly at 110°.

I take a keen interest in the technical aspects of cinema (and just about everything else technical in the world), but I've never been a fan of people. If I happen across a location shoot and the equipment looks interesting, I may pause and watch (if the weather isn't too hot!), but I often miss or don't recognize the talent. You can see famous people a lot in Paris, anyway, if you're looking for them. There isn't anyone worth seeing in 110° heat, however, and I pity the cast and crew working in today's hellish, disquietingly freaky weather.

Tomorrow I actually have three hours of work, for which I'll be paid €36 before taxes. That'll make 13.5 hours (€162) of work so far this month, which is slightly more than my bimonthly electric bill. (If you are wondering why my electric bill is €80 a month for a one-room studio … well, I wonder why it's so high, too! I guess EDF has to make fat profits for its shareholders.)

Technology in Paris, firefighters, and pharmacies

Although the major attractions of Paris mostly depend on history and tradition rather than the cutting edge of technology, the fact that Paris is a major world capital means that it still gets some technological innovations before anyone else on the block (at least in the European neighborhood, and sometimes even in the world).

I saw a tiny example of this while waiting in line at McDonald's on the Champs (the busiest restaurant in France). There was the usual array of flat-panel displays above the counter hawking all sorts of McDonald's stuff, but I noticed that one of the displays in the middle was in three dimensions. Intrigued, I shifted from side to side and confirmed my suspicion: the display was designed like certain novelty postcards, using an old technique for 3-D that consists of having tiny linear lenses on the screen that make only one of two images visible depending on your point of view. When you stand just right, one eye sees a slightly different image from the other eye, making 3-D display possible.

I found this interesting, but the novelty of the effect lasted only for about thirty seconds, which was barely five percent of the time I spent waiting in line. And I don't actually remember what the display was advertising, so it would seem that the 3-D effect did not make the advertising any more effective.

I've seen other minor examples of high-tech here and there. One of the designers in the Avenue Montaigne (where many high-fashion designers have their flagship stores) is using LCD panels to alternately hide and reveal the contents of store windows. Ho-hum. Of course we have our high-tech sanisettes, which are both modern and practical. The City of Paris also spends a lot of money on highly customized vehicles for various purposes. The street and sidewalk cleaning equipment is very modern and carefully chosen for the job. Fire and paramedic trucks, which at first glance look like ordinary vans, are in fact custom-designed for the fire department and contain a great many special features that make them highly adapted to Paris.

In fact, Paris firefighters are world-famous. Their helmets are very distinctive, with a very glossy metallic finish, and a very cool reflective visor that matches the helmet. They aren't designed this way just to look cool, however: the reflective finish and the reflective visor help shield firefighters against radiant heat. Their vehicles are also very specialized, as I've indicated. They have to be, because the tiny streets of Paris won't necessarily accept more conventional equipment. Ladder trucks, for example, are especially compact so that they can fit down smaller streets without too much trouble.

Speaking of ladder trucks … you'd think that they'd be used mainly for fighting fires, and they are certainly used for that. But they have another important use: getting people out of apartments. See, Parisians tend to put a zillion locks on their apartment doors, so much so that even a locksmith may not be able to get into the apartment, much less firefighters. If they get a call about someone possibly ill inside an apartment, they don't just bust the door down. Instead, they pull a ladder truck up to the outside of the building, extend the ladder to the outside window of the apartment, and go in that way. It's easier to get in and it doesn't require chopping a door down.

This sort of thing happens more often than you'd expect. Many Parisians live alone in their small, well-barricaded apartments. French people live a long time, and French old ladies live an especially long time. Sometimes old ladies (or other people) expire silently in their apartments, and only the smell or a long period of inactivity clue anyone in to their deaths. The fire department then comes, enters the apartment through a window, and checks to see if the inhabitant is alive. Often she (or he) isn't. I've seen this happen on many occasions, although I haven't waited to see if the person being checked on was dead or alive.

Speaking of elderly French ladies, I went to a pharmacy not long ago to top off my stock of aspirin, and I was struck once again by the vast number of people filling vast numbers of prescriptions. The woman in front of me looked to be in her early thirties, and yet she had a stack of prescriptions to fill … and she wasn't really an exception to the rule. People of all ages are taking all sorts of medications; the French seem to love medication. Apparently France is one of the world's leading markets for Valium, and standing in line at the pharmacy while each person fills half a dozen prescriptions, I had no trouble believing this. I was tempted to step closer and see exactly what this relatively young woman was buying, but I was too polite to do that. I wonder how many mood-altering medications were on her list.

Finding a pharmacy is a bit of an exercise in itself, at least late at night. Most of the pharmacies in my neighborhood were closed when I went out looking late on this Saturday night. Open pharmacies are easy to find because they nearly all have green neon crosses outside, and if the cross is lit, the pharmacy is open. I searched everywhere, and finally found one pharmacy open, probably the pharmacie de garde. The law requires that one pharmacy in each neighborhood—the pharmacie de garde—remain open all the time, so that there's always a way to get medication (you never know when you might run out of Xanax in the middle of the night). Other pharmacies post the location of the pharmacie de garde on the door when they are closed. I didn't check for a pharmacie de garde, but I spotted a glowing green cross, so I just headed for that. It took forever to get served, thanks to the thousands of prescriptions being filled in front of me.

For people with a very long life expectancy statistically, France sure seems to embrace heavy medication early in life. I doubt that the medication improves the life expectancy, but perhaps they find a lifetime on Prozac less stressful (?).